HYPERTEXT - Notes on the Internet life

For Paris, the best defense is parody

July 04, 2007|By Steve Johnson, Tribune Internet critic

Ignoring Paris Hilton, at this point, won't work. She's going to be covered because, hate her or strongly dislike her, she generates page views, sells magazines, leads you to read items like this one and me to write them, etc.

So perhaps the best response is parody. That was the operating theory of Allan Murray and Sean Haines, an L.A. comedy/filmmaking duo. Inspired, apparently, by Hilton's own music video and song, they put together a tribute to the heiress' legal woes called "Paris in Jail." You can find it most readily by searching that title at YouTube (www.youtube.com).

This thing has been played more than 7 million times, and unlike, say, the "Crush on Obama" video that recently went viral as well, "Paris in Jail" has a lightness of touch and a nimbleness with a lyric that should serve as a model for other YouTubers thinking they might take on a topic in the news. It also features surprisingly high production values as the heiress laments the misfortunes that forced her to actually do jail time.

The only misstep is calling her place of incarceration "L.A. State Prison." If you're going to send up the news, take the extra few minutes to run a Google search and get your facts right, no matter how tempting it is to rhyme "prison" with "collision."

But Amber Hay as Paris is perfectly pouty and entitled, and even resembles her in body type. And Elizabeth Intza doing her voice sounds like the heiress if she could, in fact, sing.